Cheshire Resident Honored at CBA Annual Meeting

Quinnipiac University School of Law Dean Brad Saxton was presented with the Connecticut Bar Association’s (CBA) Tapping Reeve Legal Educator Award during the Annual Dinner at the organization’s Annual Meeting on June 17 at the Connecticut Convention Center in Hartford.

As dean and professor of law at Quinnipiac University School of Law since 2002, Saxton has overseen a staff of faculty and administrators dedicated to providing law students with a successful legal education that effectively blends doctrinal and practical training as its core value.

Under his just-ending tenure as dean, Quinnipiac University School of Law has boasted accomplishments in student competition teams, including a Mock Trial Society, Moot Court Society, and Society for Dispute Resolution. While each of these competition teams has enjoyed success over the years, the Society for Dispute Resolution has enjoyed the most achievement—having won the regional mediation competition twice in three years, sending the team to the national competition. The Society for Dispute Resolution is also unlike the other competition teams in that it is not purely a competition team; instead, the organization has a strong community service arm that strives to have as many activities as possible available to the entire student population.

Before taking on his roles as dean and professor at Quinnipiac University School of Law, Dean Saxton was a law professor at the University of Wyoming School of Law for ten years and associate dean for two years. He began his career in 1986 as an attorney with Hogan & Hartson in Washington, D.C. as an employment litigator. Prior to joining that practice, he was a law clerk to Judge Louis F. Oberdorfer for the United States Supreme Court in Washington, D.C.

Dean Saxton is an Honors in Economics graduate of the College of William and Mary and J.D., Order of the Coif, graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law.

The recipient of the Tapping Reeve Legal Educator Award must meet the following criteria: he or she be a member of the CBA who has contributed greatly to the legal education of his or her colleagues as a member of the faculty, a clinical instructor, or an adjunct instructor at the University of Connecticut School of Law, Quinnipiac University School of Law, Yale Law School, or Western New England University School of Law; have a minimum of ten years of teaching experience at one or more of the four schools listed; or at least ten years as an attorney admitted to the Connecticut Bar who has demonstrated a sustained commitment and made significant contributions to the cause of legal education over a period of years and not be a single or isolated activity; and distinguished himself or herself as a legal educator of the highest quality as a teacher, scholarly writer, or both.  

Tapping Reeve (1744-1823) founded Litchfield Law School in 1774, a formal school to train those interested in the legal profession, which was predated in existence only to Judge Knierim’s undergraduate alma mater’s law school, William and Mary School of Law.  Attorney Reeve eventually went on to become the Chief Justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court, but it was his commitment to legal education that inspired the creation of the CBA award during the 2011-2012 Bar year.

Dean Saxton was selected based on nominations submitted to the CBA Awards Committee.

The Connecticut Bar Association is a professional association committed to the advancement of justice, the practice of law, the image of the profession, and public understanding of the law. For more information, please visit www.ctbar.org.